YMMV / Mary Worth

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Mary Worth a wise old woman or a meddling old she-devil who resorts to Gaslighting to keep people in line?
  • Is Wilbur Weston an Unlucky Everydude with relationship problems or a middle aged Manchild who refuses to accept responsibility for his relationships going bad? Mary (and the writer) think it's the former but there are fans who think the latter is more accurate.
• Arc Fatigue: To quote CC's Quote of the Week: "...Where's the fire, there, Sparky? So far in 2010 there's been at least a solid four and a half months of watching people read e-mail, or think about e-mail they've recently read."
  • The latest storyline has been months of petty relationship drama with Wilbur and Estelle with the focus solely on them and no other main characters save for Mary make appearances.
• Catharsis Factor: Say one thing for Wilbur, he'll always be on the receiving end of plenty of failure and humiliation for the reader to gloat over. Even his tendency to be Easily Forgiven just sets him up to inevitably screw his life up all over again.
• Creator's Pet: Wilbur Weston has been more or less the sole focus for months to the point that the comic might as well be called "Wilbur Weston featuring Mary Worth."
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Aldo, probably to blame on The Comics Curmudgeon. See Ascended Meme.
  • And Wilbur Weston (the sandwich-lover). And Helen (hic) Clark. And Jill Black. The Curmudgeon, of course, is to blame.
  • Libby the one-eyed cat and Pierre the French bulldog have gained some popularity as well, especially after the former peed on Wilbur's seat after he threatened her.
• Funny Moments:
  • Dawn realises that she's been acting very much like Wilbur, which freaks her out so much that she has a nightmare about physically transforming into him. It's precisely as bizarre as it sounds. What really nails it is how matter-of-factly the story treats it that the very idea of resembling Wilbur is horrifying.
• Memetic Mutation: "Dogs are great!"
  • "Gram liked colors."
  • "Gram liked colorful dogs."
  • "Wilbur has so many endearing quirks."
  • "Life is brutal."
• Narm Charm: Why The Comics Curmudgeon and his readers seem to adore the hokey strip so much. The author seems fully aware of that fact, and opened up her Cafepress with items prominently featuring Mary at her meddlingest.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In a storyline, it featured a Doctor named Dr. Kaphut who was addicted to heroin. He looked remarkably like Aldo Kelrast and even had the same mustache in his first appearance (Though it was removed in subsequent appearances likely for this reason) if Dr. Kaphut was Aldo who had faked his own death and went to drugs to fill the void that was Mary, and Mary finding out and having to convince him to move on, wouldn't that have been a much better storyline?
  • Wilbur falling off the cruise ship ends very quickly and anticlimactically especially when one considers that he basically cheated death several times over and left his loved ones to worry and mourn him for a week when he easily could have called them on the resort island he washed up on. Turns out he didn't call them because he wanted to surprise them.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: As much as "Gram liked colors" became a Memetic Mutation, Madi is this. She's meant to be seen as a bratty kid who doesn't immediately adore Saul's dachshund Greta and her moodiness as well as being stuck in Charterstone for the summer is seen as inconvenient. Turns out Madi had lost her mother at a young age and just recently lost her grandmother but just like how the previous storyline forced Saul to get a dog and "get over" his grief, Mary downplays Madi's obvious problems with grief and loss to say that her problems are on the same level as Greta who had spent time looking for a home. To make it even more insulting, this works.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Wilbur Weston. Mary and her meddling try hard to make him look like a guy unlucky in love with a few vices she labels "endearing quirks" but he comes across more as a smug Attention Whore prone to fits of jealousy, obsessed with not being alone, denying that he's the one at fault for things going wrong, and wallowing in self-pity. Not to mention, he yells at and threatens physical harm towards Estelle's cat, and spontaneously adopts a dog solely to pick up women and says he'll send him back to the shelter if it doesn't work (instead he drops off the dog with Estelle). Estelle finally had enough and broke up with him for good
  • Mary herself is a frequent crossover into this category. Much of her "helpful" advice is meant to show just how wise she is but in many cases, it sounds a lot more like Gaslighting into forcing people to accept what she thinks is right rather than what makes logical sense. The meddling old she-devil would rather force people into unwanted and potentially dangerous situations than admit that she might be wrong about something.
  • Toby Cameron crosses this line in the latest story where we're supposed to pity her for being harassed and stalked by a teacher who has a grudge against her due to a personal history with Ian as well as having a student with a crush on her. What makes Toby unsympathetic about the situation is that rather than actually solve her problem, she proceeds to do nothing despite knowing just what her problem is and seems to think that she's being a caring person by having concerns about possibly breaking someone's heart when she's been stringing along the student unintentionally and needing her own husband to point out the student's crush. She also doesn't solve her issue with the student crush maturely and instead decides to bring Ian to make out in front of him so that Cal will instead pay attention to another girl.
  • And then there's Dawn Weston, Wilbur's unlucky in love co-ed daughter. Just like her father, Dawn has been belittling and disrespecting her current partner Jared as well as lying behind his back to go out dancing when he gets (rightfully) upset with her for scoping out another guy during their date for "aesthetic reasons." When her friend calls her out on this, she makes excuses that lying to him is better than telling the truth so that she can have a good time. And she's still meant to be portrayed in a sympathetic light, just like dear old dad.
  • Iris Beedle is supposed to be portrayed as sympathetic because of her insecurity that Zak’s former babysitter Nan looks a lot like her (at least in her mind). However, she comes across as pouty and petulant when she insists that her resemblance to Nan is why Zak is with her while Zak doesn’t see it that way and says that they’re completely different people. This is not the first time that Iris has shown insecurity about their relationship but this is the first time where it sounds like she wants there to be a problem.

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